“NewsWrap"
for the week ending March 1, 2008
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,040, distributed 3-3-08)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley]
Reported this week by Erica Springer and Greg Gordon
In Australia, Sydney celebrated the 30th annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade on March 1st with the usual flamboyant floats and marching entries, and record crowds. It was led by “the 78ers,” activists who'd participated in what was then a first-ever LGBT street party in 1978 that police violently broke up. This year, more than 10,000 marchers and 150 floats paraded through central Sydney, while a crowd estimated at about 300,000 waving rainbow flags cheered them on.
A contingent from the Australian Defence Force, which lifted its ban on openly-lesbigay servicemembers in 1992, marched for the first time, as did a group of about a hundred Christian clerics, known as “the 100 Revs,” who've said that LGBT people deserve an apology for the un-Christian way they've been treated by their religious institutions.
Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras has become one of the largest queer pride events in the world, generating millions in tourism revenue. Air New Zealand even offered a special "pink flight" from San Francisco to Sydney for the festivities.
Meanwhile, representatives from lesbian groups across Africa are calling for governments on their continent to end homophobia and repeal laws against homosexual acts.
Up to 100 people are reportedly taking part in a weeklong conference in the Mozambique capital of Maputo organized by the Coalition of African Lesbians. Women from 14 African nations gathered in Namibia in August 2004 to establish that group.
Homosexuality is outlawed in 38 countries in Africa. And while South Africa has some of the world's most progressive queer rights laws, including same-gender marriage, a spokesperson for this week's conference said that South African society doesn't always reflect the laws of the land. Fikile Vilakazi told reporters that gays and lesbians continue to be threatened, detained, and even murdered there.
Same-gender marriage is also legal in Spain, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, and the U.S. state of Massachusetts.
But Spain's opposition Partido Popular is threatening to overturn the mostly Roman Catholic country's 2005 legalization of same-gender marriage if it wins the March 9th national elections.
Queer advocates picketed the Partido Popular headquarters in mid-February, charging that the party has a desire to turn back the clock. They carried signs saying, "We are for a secular state" and "No to religious dictatorship."
The Malta Gay Rights Movement this week submitted a petition to the ruling Nationalist Party demanding queer equality, according to a report in the “Times of Malta.” The petition, with 1,084 signatures, asked for formal legal recognition of same gender couples; anti-discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender expression in the delivery of goods and services; a clear strategy to fight homophobic and trans-phobic bullying in schools; and the inclusion of gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy for transgender persons as part of public health services.
Education Minister Louis Galea and Nationalist Party General Secretary Joe Saliba responded to the petition, first saying that the party's definition of marriage was strictly that of a union between a man and a woman, but that the Nationalists were committed to addressing the rights of cohabiting couples - whether heterosexual or same-gender.
They also said that their party favored anti-discrimination legislation in the provision of goods and services, and that they would be willing to support a European Union directive to that effect. They also acknowledged the need for some form of government support for transgender people.
A Malta Gay Rights Movement spokesperson told the “Times of Malta” that the group "hopes that this will result in concrete policy actions should the Nationalist Party be re-elected."
And at least five gay men are seeking election to Parliament in Nepal.
Sunil Pant, founder of the country's LGBT advocacy group Blue Diamond Society, and one of the candidates, told the “Reuters” news service that "This is a very symbolic approach to tell all Nepalis that we have equal rights."
All five gay candidates are members of the Nepal Communist Party, a junior partner in the coalition government.
Voters go to the polls on April 10th to elect a new 601-seat legislature. It will be the country's first general election since 1999.
Homosexual acts are punishable in Hindu-majority Nepal by up to two years in prison. Members of the Himalayan nation's LGBT community are arbitrarily arrested, held without a hearing and beaten and tortured by prison guards.
Nepal's Supreme Court ruled in December that the government must create new laws to protect sexual minority rights and change those that discriminate. The government has thus far not acted on the court's directive.
Human Rights Watch and the Moroccan Human Rights Association this week petitioned that government to repeal a law that outlaws consensual same-gender sex. The two groups also urged Morocco to release six men currently in jail under Article 489 of the country's penal code, which mandates prison terms for persons who commit “lewd or unnatural acts with an individual of the same sex”. Police arrested the men in November after a video of a private event, described by local media as a “gay wedding,” circulated on the Internet. Prosecutors failed to submit any evidence at the trial that the defendants had violated Article 489, and despite each man's not guilty plea, a court in Ksar el-Kbir sentenced each of them to between four and 10 months in prison. An appellate court in Tangier upheld the convictions, but reduced their sentences.
Joe Stork, director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division, said in the press release that “This trial shows how an unjust law can be used to violate the basic right to privacy and fuel social prejudice.”
In other news, the future Queen of the Netherlands will attend an LGBT rights conference organized by the Dutch Gay Federation, becoming the first royal in the world to personally appear at such a gathering.
A spokesperson for the royal family announced this week that Princess Maxima will address the conference, being held in four major cities - Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. She's the Argentine-born wife of Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, the heir to the Dutch throne.
The conference will discuss the exclusion of LGBT people in society. The royal spokesperson said that the princess will sign an accord at the end of the conference calling for the full acceptance of gay people in the Netherlands.
Organizer Frank Van Dalen told reporters that "This will be a historically significant royal presence. This is what we have been hoping for a very, very long time.”
The announcement has been criticized by a far right political party, the Dutch Lutheran Church, and Islamic groups. Muslims are a growing presence in the country.
In 2001 the Netherlands became the world's first country to enact marriage equality, but there's been an alarming increase in homophobic attacks there in recent times. Police in Amsterdam reported a fifty-percent increase in such violent crimes last year, often perpetrated by immigrant youth.
In what may be the first ruling of its kind in the U.S., a New York City judge decided this week that the determination by the state's highest court that there's no constitutional right to same-gender marriage doesn't apply to divorce. The ruling by Supreme Court Justice Laura Drager allows a Manhattan woman who married her lesbian partner in Canada in 2004 to sue for divorce and child custody. “Beth R” is seeking the divorce and joint custody of “Donna M”'s two children. The women are only identified that way because the children are minors. “Donna M” argued that the divorce petition should be dismissed because New York State doesn't recognize same-gender marriage.
But Drager found that "out-of-state same-sex marriages are properly recognized under our law."
In another case last month the Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court arrived at the same conclusion. It reversed a lower court ruling that Monroe Community College in Rochester didn't have to extend health benefits to an employee's lesbian partner, even though the couple had legally married in Canada. Both cases will likely be heard by the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court.
That court's ruling last year against same-gender marriage said it was up to the legislature to enact such a law. The Democratically-controlled New York State Assembly subsequently passed marriage equality legislation, but the Republican-led state Senate has refused to take up the bill.
And finally, an update to our late-breaking report last week about February 24th's 80th annual Academy Awards: a host of stars turned out for the traditional Oscar Night party in support of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. The annual gala, hosted by the openly gay pop star and his partner David Furnish, featured performances by Mary J Blige, Jack Shears of Scissor Sisters, and Sir Elton himself. It was one of the night's most attended parties, and raised a record breaking 5.1 million dollars. Since its establishment in 1992 the Elton John AIDS Foundation has raised more than 125 million dollars to support HIV/AIDS prevention and service programs in 55 countries.
And as we reported last week, “Freeheld,” about a terminally ill lesbian New Jersey police lieutenant's fight to have her domestic partner inherit her pension, won the Best Documentary Short Subject Oscar. But you wouldn't know that Scott Rudin, co-producer of the Best Picture-winning “No Country For Old Men” was a gay man if you read the original transcript of the event posted on the official Oscars Web site. The last part of his acceptance speech was curiously missing:
[sound: “This is also for my partner, John Barlow. Without you, honey, this is just hardware."]
The transcript was eventually “updated” to include those sentiments. But as pundit Dana Stevens wrote on “Slate.com,” "I guess being publicly gay at the Oscars is still no country for old men.”
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